Laughable
by Taylor Hayes
Summary: A little drabble that involves Eames being a smartaleck. You know you love it! No slash meant, just Eames.
1. Laughable

Laughable

a/n This is my first Inception fanfic. (Or at least the first one I've got around to posting...) And it was inspired by something a friend mentioned. Don't ask. *laugh*

The day was nearly over when the forger shoved his chair away from the desk, came to his feet and moseyed towards the door. Hands in pockets, whistling, he seemed completely unconcerned of the glare Arthur was directing his way.

"Where are you going?"

Eames spun, walking backwards, and winked at the pointman. "I'm off a-whoring. Take care of the chicklets and don't forget to feed the family dog, darling."

Arthur rolled his eyes and went back to his blueprints. "Don't forget we meet tomorrow morning at ten."

"See you then, love!" Eames called, blowing him a kiss.

And Ariadne buried her face in her arms, trying to stifle her giggles.

fin.


	2. Paperclips

2.

a/n Wasn't planning on adding to this, but something made me laugh and the result is this drabble. Enjoy!

It was Yusuf who noticed first. And he decided it was "not his place to interfere".

Next was Saito, who knew he should object, but simply watched in amused irritation out of the corner of his eye.

When Dom realized what was happening, he couldn't stop the grin.

Ariadne choked trying to swallow her giggles, and hid behind her coffee mug.

Up to this point, they had all been trying to decide if Arthur was ignoring it, or really hadn't noticed.

They decided it was the latter when Arthur took a long swallow of his drink, spluttered, soughed, and spit out the last paperclip which had been successfully tossed into the cup.

Staring in confusion down at the bent piece of metal, his eyes narrowed and fell on the forger.

"Eeeeaaaaaaames!"

It was nearly three hours before things calmed down enough for Eames to lean on Ariadne desk, smirking gaze on the annoyed pointman. "I do love it when he storms my castle."

The cup seemed to fly through the air all on its own. (Or at least nobody actually saw Arthur throw it.)

Eames licked the liquid off his lips and leered at Arthur. "I didn't know your tastes ran that way, darling. But I'll be glad to pour on some Viennese coffee before you get to my flat tonight, love."

The man didn't dignify this with a response, but Saito muttered under his breath, holding his face in his hands, "Children. I work with children."

fin.


	3. Eames' Day Off

Eames' Day Off

a/n This just came to me. It's one of those "what if's".

It was unusually quiet.

It was unnaturally calm.

It was Eames' day off.

(He had called that morning and babbled bits and pieces of his excuse to Arthur. Something involving a girl, a chicken, the local police, a motorbike, a New York City snow globe, and something called "gris gris". "Sorry, darling, but we're just not going to be able to see each other for at least 24 more utterly unbearable hours," Eames had chuckled, while Arthur rolled his eyes.)

But what it all boiled down to was that Eames wasn't coming in for the day.

And Arthur was thanking God for one day of uninterrupted work. One day without Eames constantly getting into Arthur's (perfectly gelled) hair, or bothering Dom, or trading travel stories with Yusuf and Saito, or flirting with Ariadne.

One day of peace.

Then at lunchtime, Arthur noticed something: He was fidgeting.

Arthur couldn't sit still. He had undone and retied his tie. Three times. In 45 minutes. He couldn't concentrate on his job, or the calculations that needed to be made. Everything was annoying and distracting as hell, from the blinking light on the coffee machine, to the sound of Dom's pacing.

Yes, Dom was pacing. If Arthur was bad, the others were worse.

Dom usually paced. But today, there was no thoughtful crinkling of the brow, no insightful exclamations or suggestions, no mid-moment epiphanies. There was just the constant wearing down of the cement as he endlessly retraced his steps, face blank.

Yusuf managed to mix the wrong chemicals on his current concoction. Another thing that was normal. But it _wasn't_ normal for said concoction to keep bursting into flames and setting the nearest stacks of research papers on fire.

And Saito was staring off into the distance. Again, not uncommon. But instead of the focused look the businessman had while running names and companies through his mind, he seemed dazed and distant, as though he was taking a nap with his eyes open.

Ariadne loved to talk. Arthur knew that. The girl wasn't happy with her work until she had explained it to someone else and listened to their critiques and ideas. Instead, today she was spouting off random facts about buildings and random tribal customs and things she had recently learned in class that had nothing to do with the job. Apparently, without anyone breaking into said conversations, teasing and telling overwhelmingly fake stories and adding other pointless items to the exchange, she had nothing to do but give extended monologues ever half hour or so.

It was about two when Arthur pulled off the tie altogether, in complete consternation, and started in on his cufflinks, glaring at the cup of coffee beside him. (He had already had five more then usual, and was as jittery as a squirrel on drugs.)

Finally, they decided to call it quits, three hours earlier then they would normally.

As Arthur gathered his things, he was forced to consider the day. What the hell had happened? Not one of them had gotten a single thing done in all the time they had been there! Was it possible that they _needed_ Eames around? That they needed a fly-off-the-handle-at-the-drop-of-a-hat, anarchy-oriented, stubborn, bothersome, mocking trickster and forger around to be productive?

Blasphemous. Impossible. Unbelievable.

And undeniably true.

Why?

Because the next day, when they all arrived and found Eames pattering around the warehouse, grinning and laughing, with an absurd story and a large supply of corn husk dolls he'd "picked up for a song down the street" and "had had painted to look like you, darlings", they all breathed an inaudible sigh of relief.

And when, by noon, they had finished up every bit of prep work for the job, _three days ahead of schedule_, Arthur made a serious decision.

He had no idea how to explain, or even if he would, or how he would put up with the mocking suggestions that Arthur was "jealous" or "bloody well fancy me, don't you?" which he knew, without a doubt, would follow his choice. But there was nothing Arthur hated worse then wasting time.

And to solve this, the solution was simple: Eames was never allowed to have a day off again.


	4. Woodland Creatures

Woodland Creatures

a/n I saw a picture of said animal. and, oddly enough, my thoughts immediately turned to Eames. Don't ask me why.

"Eames?"

"Yes, darling?" the forger asked, not even bothering to turn around and face the too-calm pointman.

"Why is there a _porcupine_ on my desk?

Eames shrugged. "The darn thing was too bloody cute to leave behind, and too prickly to stay with me, so I deduced he'd enjoy your company."

"Why?" Arthur knew a zinger was coming, but he couldn't stop the annoyed query.

Eames winked broadly. "Intimidating on first sight, but utterly adorable once you know him a bit better. Obviously, the darling animal reminds me of you, darling."

Arthur looked heavenward, silently begging for a lightning bolt or a frozen bolt to hit the forger.

"Did I forget to mention jealous as anything and, according to the computer search engines, quite accomplished when it comes to mating."

Dom had been listening to all this, eyebrows raised, and finally interceded. "Eames, take back the porcupine."

"But Dom, dear, it's an utterly perfect representation of darling Arty," he protested. "Not to mention-"

"Take the poor porcupine back to its home."

Eames sighed heavily and muttered "Savage," under his breath. Then he obligingly pulled out a cage and a pair of heavily padded oven mitts from beneath his desk.

In the end, the porcupine was safely returned back to the natural habitat it had been stolen from - the local zoo.

And the nest day, the team arrived to find a goose nesting on Dom's desk.

"Eames?"

"Yes, Dom, old boy?"

fin.


	5. Sabotage

Sabotage

a/n *teehee* My friend and I were considering Arthur's relationship with coffee. You'll want to check out her stuff. It's awesome! She promised to have up some of her Inception illustrations soon. "http : / / www . elfwarriorkate . deviantart . com" (only without all the spaces.) Plus, she's got some hilarious Star Trek stuff, if you happen to be a Trekkie.

Arthur was asleep.

And not as part of a job.

Oh no. He was slumped over his desk, face on his arms, lightly snoring.

Ariadne stared in confusion, Yusuf and Saito considered the likelihood of this being a sign of the Apocalypse, and Dom was trying to decide whether he should be amused or annoyed.

Eames was suspiciously absent.

Leaving the rest of the team to contemplate what could possibly cause the perpetual motion device that was their pointman to _stop_.

Eventually, Arthur jerked back awake, flushing in quickly squashed embarrassment as he realized what everyone was watching: him.

They all hurried to look away.

Slowly, Arthur shook his head, ran a hand roughly over his face and reached for his coffee. Then his eyes rested on the cup with the intensity of a man who's discovered his wife has cheated on him.

Then he was on his feet and across the room, yanking open the drawers on Eames' desk, rifling through papers with wrath.

All his suspicions were proved correct when he pulled out the calendar scribbled over in red marker. It was a timetable entitled "Coffee Sabotage". According to the chart. the forger had slowly upped Arthur's caffeine intake over the past three weeks, and then gave him decaf that very morning.

As Arthur stared down, completely stunned, slowly feeling the shock twist into rage, Eames came rushing back into the warehouse, a polaroid camera in hand.

As he skidded to a stop, breathing hard, he announced, "Do you have any idea how bloody rare these contraptions are?"

Then he froze as Arthur advanced toward him in threatening silence, calendar visible in his grasp.

"And I was _absolutely_ not about to use said contraption to take a series of embarrassing photographs of you, darling, and then sell them to the girl at the local market whose mother is convinced her daughter and you should be married."

As Arthur moved closer, menace glinting in his eyes, Eames shrugged in apparent surrender, grinned disarmingly, then brought up the camera and snapped a picture of the pointman's angry face.

Then he ran, firing off the camera back over his shoulder to catch more shots of Arthur with every step, chuckling madly.

Arthur chased, followed by Ariadne, who didn't want to miss the show, Dom, who figured he should try to stop them, and Saito, who simply couldn't help himself from being audience to the absurd spectacle.

Yusuf remained at his burners, mixing chemicals into beakers, and sighed. "Kanada grant me patience to continue working with such unprofessional individuals."

fin.


	6. Truth vs Reality

**"Truth" vs. Reality**

a/n This is based on the prompt "superfluous", which a friend asked me for.

"…but it really wasn't my fault that the bugger had a crossbow," Eames protested. Ariadne giggled and leaned closer, enthralled by the Forger's story. "I mean, who expects to see a bloody _crossbow_ in rural China?"

Meanwhile, a few desks away, the Pointman sighed and looked up, shaking his head. "Eames, tell Ariadne the truth already."

"The truth?" the Architect's expression was puzzled, then disappointed as she turned back to Eames. "Was that all lies?"

"No!" he denied loudly. Then he grinned and shrugged. "The truth is superfluous anyways. We, of all people, should know that."

Arthur glared. "Which is all the more reason to be honest with each other."

"Really? Well, that's only completely–" he started to tease.

Ariadne pouted, Arthur glowered, and Eames laughed.

Then they all started to speak at once.

"But I really thought–"

"Why do you have to be such a–?"

"Oh, come now, darling! It's not as though–!"

Which was when Dom's voice rang through the warehouse.

"STOP."

They all turned to stare in surprise and found him rubbing at his temples. "Arthur, please remind us all when the job is planned for?"

Arthur's face went pink with embarassment. "Tomorrow."

"Exactly. So can we _please_ focus?"

Ashamed at having to receive a reminder to do his job, Arthur nodded and bent his head back over his work.

Staring thoughtfully at the Pointman, Eames chuckled, then turned back to Ariadne. "And that was when the festival started–"

"EAMES."

_fin_.


	7. Birthday Present

**Birthday Present**

It was Arthur's birthday.

Not that any of the team knew that. Even Dom wasn't privy to that kind of personal information. Arthur was a private person, and that was how he preferred it.

Which was why it was such a surprise when, after arriving at the warehouse they were set up in and fixing himself a cup of coffee, he found something waiting for him on his desk.

A bonsai tree, well kept and healthy, sat quietly on top of the blueprints he had been reviewing, in a polished black clay pot. Propped against it was a bright yellow envelope. Hesitantly, Arthur reached out, ripping through the fold and pulled out a card that was pink with yellow accents. As he opened the card, the sound of the Beatles began to play, singing "_You say it's your birthday!_"

The note inside, scribbled in a heavy, confident hand, read:

_Happy Birthday, darling! I've heard these miniature trees are meant to relieve stress. In which case, you need a forest worth._

_Love,_

_Eames._


End file.
